draggonlaady

Went to town with Bruce yesterday for some R&R.

We hit the cinema for Puss in Boots, which was pretty amusing. Excellent animation, of course. Didn't really care for Humpty, as either good or bad, but both Puss and Kitty were fun.

Then we went to dinner at a place called Catacombs Pub, which was quite enjoyable. One of the appetizers is "hot Bavarian potato salad". If you're anything like me, when someone says potato salad, you picture soggy chunks of potato drowning helplessly in slimy mayonnaise-based sludge. How appetizing... there is apparently a different, and much better, way to make potato salad though! Thin sliced potato, with herbs and bacon, tossed in a nice vinaigrette, and then melt cheese over the top. It was quite the yum. The Catacombs does a lot of pizza, and the oven is sort of surrounded by the dining area, so you can watch the chef make your pizza. Also, they have the brilliant idea of serving s'mores for dessert. Now, as I'm sure you all know, you can't just trust other people to make s'mores for you and get it right! So they bring you graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, and a little pot of fire, and you toast your own marshmallows at the table. I am now firmly of the opinion that this should be an option at many more restaurants. Though I'm sure they were going "traditional" with the Hershey's chocolate and the jumbo puffy marshmallows, I think it'd be a good idea to use home-made marshmallows and a bit higher quality chocolate... things I should keep in mind if I ever throw a party, I suppose. :)

Then we headed across the street to the Knitting Factory for an evening of humorous musics, courtesy of Jonathan Coulton and They Might Be Giants. Coulton was, as expected, quite good. Sadly, not a very long performance from him. That bit about being the opening band, I suppose, but I could have done with more than half an hour! They Might Be Giants was... a mixed bag, I guess. I've been to one of their shows before, and they rocked. Last night's show though, was off to a rough start with a terrible sound mix. It was really difficult to hear what was going on; I could barely follow the songs I knew, and the stuff from their new album was just a mass of indecipherable noise. Added to the sound problems, there was the incredibly bad idea of directing painfully bright, randomly flashing lights directly at the audience, and I very nearly decided to walk out. Thankfully, they got the sound issues a bit straightened out with time, but the first half hour of their performance was... pretty shitty. Sorry, TMBG, I am still a fan, but it's true. The start of your show sucked. Once they got the sound mix under control and it became possible to understand lyrics, things got better. I remain confused though, by the apparently random video clips being shown on the large screen behind the band.

The lovely Bruce acquired us tickets to Avenue Q, which he presented to me for Christmas. Because he bought them so very early, they came as a combo with a hotel reservation. So for Valentines, we set out to celebrate Christmas.

We dropped the kid off at his mom's, and arrived at the theater promptly at 10 to 3. Only to discover that in our careful planning, we'd made a slight error. Show started at 2. Horror!
All was not lost, however, as the very friendly entry-gate lady directed us across the way to the ticket office, where I admitted to feeling fairly idiotic, and commenced to beg. First person we spoke to passed us to her manager, who took pity on us, and switched our tickets out for a different showing. Without even charging us an exchange fee! So huge thanks and kudos on beyond-excellent customer service to the ticket folks at INB/Tickets West.
Now, we'd made dinner reservations for fairly late in the evening, because we expected to be at the show. So we had several hours to fill.

We hit Ben & Jerry's for a sundae to tide us over until dinner, and then caught a showing of The Wolfman. It was about what you'd expect from the previews. Dark, fun, pretty gory. I enjoyed it, and Bruce didn't complain much. ;)

Then, just to see how our luck was holding, we stopped by Twigs, the restaurant at which we had 8pm reservations, still a couple hours early. The hostess laughed (but not too mockingly) when we asked if we could sneak in early, but said she'd take our number and call if anything opened up early. Being right at the dinner rush time, we had no real expectation of a call significantly before our reservation. We headed off to browse some stores, but hadn't made it very far at all when the hostess from Twigs called and said there was an open table! Not even 15 minutes after saying they were booked solid for hours! It was our first time at Twigs, so we pestered our waitress with a ton of question about the food. She was grand; cheerful and peppy and very helpful. She was also REALLY flirty and fun, and at one point modeled for our suggestions how to properly flaunt her cleavage in order to win favors from the cooks. All in all, a good time, with excellent food. If you're ever near a Twigs, I highly recommend the fries, they are wonderful! Rice wine vinegar, salt, pepper, cayenne, and basil. Yum.

Dinner accomplished early, we messaged one of Bruce's friends to see what he was doing for the evening, and were invited to a Pasties and Paddles show he was photographing. Fairly amusing and the performers were obviously enjoying themselves, but the space left much to be desired...a good view of the stage primary among them.

After that, we dragged our tired selves off to the hotel, only to discover that despite our paperwork clearly stating that our reservations were for 13 Feb, the hotel had us as a no-show for 12 Feb. Again, however, this was quickly resolved with minimal fuss, and we found our way to comfy warm bed without having to make the 50+ mile drive home. Once again, hurrah for good customer service! That seems to've been a theme for the weekend, and a pleasant one it was!

Rolled out of bed at the luxuriously late hour of 11 this morning (it is sadly rare that we get to sleep in together, due to our offset work schedules), and went in search of brunch. The Kalico Kitchen was pretty busy, but the waitstaff was friendly and moved people in quickly. They do need to update their menu, as some items listed are no longer available (sad me, no coconut syrup for chocolate chip waffles), but the food was good and try as I might I really can't come up with anything significant to complain about.

From there we headed once again to the INB, and this time arrived in plenty of time for the show. Avenue Q was not exactly what I expected, but was an excellent show. The cast is a mix of people and puppets; I had expected a sort of Muppet-like puppet/people interaction, in which the puppeteers are behind or below the set and full-body puppets on stage, but the puppeteers were actually out on stage, carrying half-body puppets around and controlling them. Interesting. There was some editing/censoring of lyrics in the songs, and Bruce and I are wondering if it was "toned down" because of the area, or for the entire tour. Primarily, the word "fuck" was essentially removed from the play, though oddly, "shit" and "ass" remained in several places. It was quite a good production and I'm really happy that we were able to get tickets exchanged and see the whole show instead of having to step in at intermission yesterday!

One interesting point; in the original show/soundtrack, George Bush is mentioned passingly. That was changed to Glenn Beck in this one, and Bruce wonders now how that makes Mr. Beck feel--to be the new "ultimate evil bad guy" to all the liberals. I think he's probably pretty proud of it, if he even knows.

Wandered through a thrift store and tried on a couple dresses, picked up a couple toys, then headed northwards. Stopped at Flamin' Joe's for dinner. Bruce had the quesadilla, and declared it probably the best quesadilla he'd ever had. Wings were good, and the sweet potato fries were not bad. Not the best ever, but solidly in the good range. And hey, sweet potato fries! You have to try pretty determinedly to make those bad.

Then we stopped to get my Valentine's present (remember the whole Avenue Q thing was Christmas!). Picked up a shiny, slim, sexy, black .... keyboard! Hah. get your brains out of the gutter. My old ergonomic keyboard was fast on the way to uselessness, with stiff/sticky keys and an annoyingly loud clatter. The new one is much softer and easier on my hands. Also easier on Bruce's ears, so a win-win.

Coldstone for dessert (can never go wrong there), and now we are happily home, with a fire going and the critters happy to see us (mostly because it means dinner, I think).

So we went to a matinee showing of Avatar in 3D yesterday. That's the Sci-Fi Avatar, not The Last Airbender. Overall, it was exactly what I thought it would be, and therefore I came away satisfied.

Plot was about what you'd expect. Step-by-step rewritten from dozens of other stories you've already read or watched. No twists, nothing at all unpredicted from the beginning. Seriously; you've seen the movie Dances With Wolves? (The movie, not the book, the ending was changed for the movie.) Right? Ok, you know the plot.
What? You don't remember Dances With Wolves? Oh, alright. Soldier (Marine, in this case) gets sent to outpost in the middle of nowhere (Planet Pandora). He is assigned to a science crew gathering info and learning about natives and native wildlife. He ends up living with the natives. He predictably "goes native", and points up all the horriblebad about our greedy, planet-stripping, consumerist, self-centered culture in contrast to the Eden-like native culture. Also, he likes the native girl.
I told you you know the plot already. So lets get to why you really went to see this flick. It's pretty. It's really pretty. Go ahead and insert here all the trite phrases along the lines of "visually stunning" you can think up in the next 15 seconds. There you go. I was, however, not impressed with the 3-D. My brain already makes things 3-D and it does not process the fake movie 3-D for crap. I ended up watching the movie without the glasses, because it was actually less blurry that way. This does seem to be a fault in my brain, and not the movie, however, as both of the people I went with watched with the glasses. "The 3-D was really understated," says Bruce. This does mean that 3-D has progressed to the point that you can view it without the glasses though, unlike earlier movies where the dual images were just flat un-watchable. I had a slight headache at the end of the film, but that's pretty much par for the course for me with any theater movie, because of the insane volume levels, so I'm not blaming that on the 3-D.
My one complaint? What nerd-boy decided it was necessary to give the fighter-mechs giant Bowie knives? I mean, really? Obviously, the only purpose for this decision was so that you can have the mech-knife-fight scene, it serves absolutely no other function.

So. Go see it, but go knowing that you're seeing it for the pretty, not the plot.

Oh, and endotoxin, you're not the only one with some stomach heaves from vertigo. There was a woman trying to vomit quietly in the restroom afterward. No, the woman wasn't me.

So... we (Bruce and Bruce2 and I, with Sphynx dragged along for Transformers) went to the movies this weekend. Twice! We decided to go see both of the movies that are apparently competing hard for "Worst movie of the summer". I was going to review them, but then Bruce pointed out that ToplessRobot already has, and much better than I probably would have. So here you go:

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen
http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php

We did go see Transformers at the Imaxx, so the robots were huge, which was fun. Lots of explosions, but not nearly enough nudity and the plot was laughably holey.

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra
http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/08/robs_gi_joe_rise_of_cobra_faq.php

Well. The dialogue was iffy, there was a total disregard for physics, Duke was not the leader?!?, and it was totally ridiculous. Oddly like watching an 80's cartoon, so I guess it was less bad than Transformers.

Damn, I'm glad I can enjoy bad movies. :)

bad. don't bother.